Philippa Gregory - The Boleyn Inheritance

“And you become the king’s chief advisor?”

“Perhaps.”

“You would advise him into alliance with France?”

“God willing.”

“And speaking of God, he reconciles with the church?”

“The Holy Roman Church,” he corrects me. “Please God we can see it restored to us. I have long wanted it restored, and half the country feels as I do.”

“And so the Lutheran queen is no more?”

“Exactly, she is no more. She stands in my way.”

“And you have another candidate?”

He smiles at me. “Perhaps. Perhaps the king has already chosen himself another candidate. Perhaps his fancy has alighted and his conscience will follow.”

“Little Kitty Howard.”

He smiles.

I speak out bluntly: “But what of the young Queen Anne?”

There is a long silence. “How would I know?” he says. “Perhaps she will accept a divorce; perhaps she will have to die. All I know is: she is in my way, and she will have to go.”

I hesitate. “She is without friends in this country, and most of her countrymen have gone home. She has no support or counsel from her mother or her brother. Is she in danger of her life?”

He shrugs. “Only if she is guilty of treason.”

“How could she be? She cannot speak English; she knows no one but those people we have presented to her. How could she plot against the king?”

“I don’t know yet.” He smiles at me. “Perhaps I will one day ask you to tell me how she has played the traitor. Perhaps you will stand before a court and offer evidence of her guilt.”

“Don’t,” I say through cold lips.

“You have done it before,” he taunts me.

“Don’t.”

I am brushing the queen’s long fair hair as she sits before her silvered mirror. She is looking at her reflection, but her eyes are quite blank, she is not seeing herself at all. Fancy that! Having such a wonderful looking glass that it will give a perfect reflection, and not looking at yourself! I seem to have spent my life trying to get a view of myself in silver trays and bits of glass, even leaning over the well at Horsham, and here she is before a perfectly made looking glass and she is not entranced. Really, she is most peculiar. Behind her, I admire the movement of the sleeve of my gown as my hands move up and down; I bend down a little to see my own face and tip my head to one side to see the light catch my cheek, then I tip it the other way. I try a small smile, then I raise my eyebrows as if I am surprised.

I glance down and find she is watching me, so I giggle and she smiles.

“You are a pretty girl, Katherine Howard,” she says.

I flutter my eyelashes at our reflected images. “Thank you.”

“I am not,” she says.

One of the awkward things about her not knowing how to speak properly is that she says these dreadfully flat statements and you can’t quite tell how you should reply. Of course she is not as pretty as me, but on the other hand she has lovely hair, thick and shiny, and she has a pleasant face and good, clear skin and really quite beautiful eyes. And she should remember that almost no one at court is as pretty as me, so she need not reproach herself for that.

She has no charm at all, but that is partly because she is so stiff. She can’t dance, she can’t sing, she can’t chatter. We are teaching her to play cards and everything else, like dancing and music and singing, of which she has absolutely not a clue; but in the meantime she is fearfully dull. And this is not a court where dull goodness counts for much. Not at all, really.

“Nice hair,” I say helpfully.

She points to the table before her to her hood, which is so very large and heavy. “Not good,” she says.

“No,” I agree with her. “Very bad. You like try mine?” One of the really funny things about trying to talk to her is that you start speaking like she does. I do it for the maids when we are supposed to be sleeping at night. “You sleep now,” I say into the darkness, and we all scream with laughter.

She is pleased at this offer. “Your hood? Yes.”

I take the pins out and I lift it off my head. I take a little glance at myself in the mirror as my hood comes off and my hair tumbles down. It reminds me of dear Francis Dereham, who used to love to take off my hood and rub his face in my loose hair. Seeing myself do this in a good mirror with a true likeness for the first time in my life, I understand how desirable I was to him. Really, I can’t blame the king for looking at me as he does; I can’t blame John Beresby or the new page who is with Lord Seymour. Thomas Culpepper could not take his eyes off me at dinner last night. Truly, I am in extraordinarily good looks since I have come to court, and every day I seem to be prettier.

Gently I hold out the hood for her, and when she takes it I stand behind her to gather back her hair as she sets the hood on her head.

It makes a tremendous improvement; even she can see it. Without the heavy square frame of her German hood sitting like a roof slap on her forehead, her face becomes at once rounder and prettier.

But then she pulls my pretty hood forward so it is practically on her eyebrows, just like she wore her new French hood at the joust. She looks quite ridiculous. I give a little tut of irritation, and push it so that it is far back on her head, and then I pull some waves of hair forward to show the fair shiny thickness of it.

Regretfully, she shakes her head and pulls the hood forward again, tucking her lovely hair out of sight. “It is better so,” she says.

“Not as pretty, not as pretty! You have to wear it set back. Set back!” I exclaim.

She smiles at my raised voice. “Too French,” is all she says.

She silences me. I suppose she is right. The last thing any Queen of England can dare to look is too French. The French are the absolute last word in immodesty and immorality, and a previous English queen educated in France, quintessentially French, was my cousin Anne Boleyn, who brought the French hood to England and took it off only to put her head on the block. Queen Jane wore the English hood in a triumph of modesty. It is like the German hood, quite ghastly, only a little lighter and slightly curved, and that’s what most ladies wear now. Not me: I wear a French hood, and I wear it as far back as I dare and it suits me, and it would suit the queen, too.

“You wore it at the joust and nobody dropped dead,” I urge her. “You are queen. Do what you like.”

She nods. “Maybe,” she says. “The king likes this?”

Well, yes, he likes this hood but only because I am under it. He is such a doting old man that I think he would like me if I wore a jester’s cap on my head and danced about in motley, shaking a pig’s bladder with bells.

“He likes it well enough,” I say carelessly.

“He likes Queen Jane?” she asks.

“Yes. He did. And she wore an awful hood, like yours.”

“He comes to her bed?”

Saints, I don’t know where this is going, but I wish that Lady Rochford were here. “I don’t know, I wasn’t at court then,” I say. “Honestly, I lived with my grandmother. I was just a girl. You could ask Lady Rochford, or any of the old ladies. Ask Lady Rochford.”

“He kiss me good night,” she says suddenly.

“That’s nice,” I say faintly.

“He kiss me good morning.”

“Oh.”

“That all.”

I look around the empty dressing chamber. Normally there should be half a dozen maids in here; I don’t know where they can all be. They just wander off sometimes. There is nothing so idle as girls, really. I can see why I irritate everybody so much. But now I really need some help with this embarrassing confession, and there is no one here at all.

“Oh,” I say feebly.

“Just that: kiss, good night, and then kiss, good morning.”

I nod. Where are the idle sluts?

“No more,” she says, as if I am so stupid that I don’t understand the really disastrous thing she is telling me.

I nod again. I wish to God someone would come in. Anyone. I should even be glad to see Anne Bassett right now.

“He cannot do more,” she says bluntly.

I see a dark color rising up her face; the poor thing is blushing with embarrassment. At once I stop feeling awkward, and I feel such pity for her; really, this is as bad for her to tell me as it is for me to hear. Actually, it must be worse for her to say than for me to hear, since she is having to tell me that her husband feels no desire for her, and she doesn’t know what to do about it. And she is a very shy, very modest woman; and God knows, I am not.

Her eyes are filling with tears as her cheeks are growing red. The poor thing, I think. The poor, poor thing. Fancy having an ugly old man for a husband and his not being able to do it. How disgusting would that be? Thank God I am free to choose my own lovers; Francis was as young and sleek-skinned as a snake, and he kept me awake all night with his unstoppable lust. But she is stuck with a sick old man, and she will have to find a way to help him.

“Do you kiss him?” I ask.

“No,” she says shortly.

“Or…” I mime a stroking motion with my right hand lightly clenched at hip level; she knows well enough what I mean.

“No!” she exclaims, quite shocked. “Good God, no.”

“Well, you have to do that,” I tell her frankly. “And let him see you, leave the candles burning. Get out of bed and undress.” I make a little gesture to indicate how she should let her shift slide off her shoulders, slither down over her breasts. I turn away from her and look over my shoulder with a little smile; slowly I bend over, still smiling over my shoulder. No man can resist that, I know.

“Stop,” she says. “Not good.”

“Very good,” I say firmly. “Must be done. Must have baby.”

She turns her face one way and the other, like a poor trapped animal. “Must have baby,” she repeats.

I mime for her the opening of a shift, I stroke my hand down from my breasts to my fanny. I close my eyes and sigh as if in the grip of tremendous pleasure. “Like this. Do this. Let him watch.”

She looks at me with her serious face very grave. “I cannot,” she says quietly. “Katherine, I cannot do anything like that.”

“Why not? If it would help? If it would help the king?”

“Too French,” she says sadly. “Too French.”

This great court is on the move, from the palace at Whitehall to another of the king’s houses, called Hampton Court. No one has described it to me, but I am expecting to see a good-sized farmhouse in the country. In truth, I am hoping for a smaller house where we can live more simply. The palace of Whitehall is like a little town inside the city of London, and twice a day, at least, if I were not guided by my ladies, I should get lost. The noise is constant, of people coming and going, striking deals, having arguments, musicians practicing, tradesmen offering their goods, even pedlars come to sell things to the housemaids. It is like a village filled with people who have no real work to do but gossip and spread rumors and cause trouble.

All the great tapestries, carpets, musical instruments, treasures, plate, glasses, and beds are packed on a train of wagons, on the day of our departure, as if a city were on the move. All the horses are saddled, and the falcons settled in their special wagons, standing on their posts with wickerwork screens around them, their hooded heads turning eagerly, this way and that, the pretty feathers at the top of the hood bobbing like a knight’s jousting crest. I watch them and think that I am as blind and as powerless as them. We have both been born to be free, to go where we want, and here we both are, captives of the king’s pleasure, waiting for his command.

The dogs are whipped in by their huntsmen, they spill around the courtyards, yelping and tumbling over in their excitement. All the great families pack their own goods, order their own servants, prepare their own horses and luggage train and we fall into procession, early in the morning like a small army, to ride out through the gates of Whitehall and along the river, to Hampton Court.

For once, God be praised, the king is merry, in high spirits. He says he will ride with me and my ladies and he can tell me about the countryside as we go by. I do not have to go in a litter as I did when I first came to England; I am now allowed to ride, and I have a new gown for riding in with a long skirt that drapes down either side of the saddle. I am not a skilled rider, for I was never properly taught. My brother let Amelia and me ride only the safest fat horses in his small stable, but the king has been kind to me and given me a horse of my own, a gentle mare with steady paces. When I touch her with my heel, she will go forward into a canter, but when fear makes me jerk on the reins, she goes back into a courteous walk. I love her for this obedience, as she helps me hide my fear in this fearless court.